Clarion South 2007 Throwdown -- I enter the fray.

"I'll have the eye of the tiger in orange sauce," said Mertrude. "And a side of fried larks' eardrums."

"Burger and chips for me, thanks," I added. I always tried to keep things simple when I was with Mertrude, as a sort of apology to the world for my sister. I knew it wasn't my fault she was the way she was. But that didn't take away the clammy, clinging feeling of responsibility, of needing to compensate.

It all only served to enable her behavior, I knew that, I knew that. As long as her little brother was along, the feathers would be smoothed, the valleys exalted, the hills made low, the rough places planed. Hallelujah.

Mertrude's amazing talents explained everything: her sense of entitlement, her dictatorial manner, her insistance on the finest things, in spite -- because -- of the trouble she caused. She came at the world swinging fists of steel, and the careless and weak flew left and right from her gauntlets.

[This may or may not end up being one of my throwdown stories, but something in my subconscious is compelling me, Manchurian-Candidate-style, to include "eye of the tiger" and "fists of steel" on my blog at least once each week. By the way, I just broke 49,000 for NaNo. And I've barely begun cleaning up after the Illawarra Festival of Southern Barbecue.]